IGN Music: Based on some of the other DJ's I've spoken to, it seems like the general nature of the gig was being in a recording studio in New York and doing about a three hour voiceover session.

Roy Haynes: Right, right.

IGN Music: So how long was your session? A full day?

Roy Haynes: No, it wasn't a full day. It was a couple hours. Maybe three hours being involved along with waiting for them to set up things.

IGN Music: Did they sit you down and show you the game and give you a rundown of the storyline?

Roy Haynes: I think they explained it more than showing it to me, if I remember correctly. They explained a lot of it.

IGN Music: So how does it feel to be part of this game, which is having such an impact on present day popular culture?

Roy Haynes: Well I heard that people were in line hours before [to buy the game]. That in itself, to be part of something like that. Here I am, I've been playing over 60 years and I've played with everybody from Louis Armstrong to Pat Metheny. My career has been very exciting. They wanted me to do it and when I went, the feeling was great.

IGN Music: This is almost like the icing on the cake. You've dominated the world of jazz drumming, been nominated for a Grammy, and now you're part of one of the biggest videogame franchises ever.

Roy Haynes: Yeah, yeah. It feels quite exciting.

IGN Music: Now when your agent came to you with this project and said "Hey, these guys want you to be part of this major videogame." Did you automatically say "I'm down!"

Roy Haynes: [laughs]. Well, I wanted to know more about it. But it sounded exciting. Then when they told me the name of the company was Rockstar...you know? That sounds exciting. And a videogame! That's almost unheard of, for a jazz guy to be involved in.

IGN Music: Did you see this as a way to maybe subliminally educate videogame playing kids in the ways of classic Jazz music?

Roy Haynes: Well I think that was the idea of the whole thing. Not from me, particularly, but naturally when I heard it was a videogame...then when I would mention it to my grandchildren, they were all excited. We had a family reunion in upstate New York and some of the young girls, they were all from Boston, and they told me the game was banned in Boston. But they were so excited that I was involved in it.

IGN Music: Well I was pretty surprised to see the amount of Jazz they included in the game. There's your "station" and then they have another Jazz station, a fusion based one, hosted by Roy Ayers. They pretty much seem to have covered all the bases.

Roy Haynes: Right, right.

IGN Music: You mentioned earlier that you did a bit of ad libbing when you were in the studio doing your voiceovers. Obviously they (Rockstar) were cool with that.

Roy Haynes: I guess after I started ad-libbing [laughs]. That's my feeling, that they were happy and satisfied.

IGN Music: Now have you ever done any DJing before?

Roy Haynes: Yes, many years ago. Carman McRae and I, we did something, I forget what station it was here in New York. We were just guests, though. I've been a guest [on the radio] a couple of times years back. Not recently, though.

IGN Music: So it wasn't terribly foreign to you. I mean you picked it up rather easily, no?

Roy Haynes: You would think. After playing this music for the amount of time I've been playing it and then being interviewed by different people, you have an idea. Sometimes you think of things that they don't even think of. Seeing as how this was done for a game, they did have certain little things for me. I probably said them my way. Everything they had in mind was not left out completely.

IGN Music: You just gave it the Roy Haynes twist.

Roy Haynes: Sort of, yeah [laughs].

IGN Music: How would you compare your day job of playing drums and recording musical tracks in the studio to this voiceover gig for Grand Theft Auto IV?

Roy Haynes: You know what? It felt pretty much like me, except some of the things I would talk about were not me. I was talking like a younger, not hoodlum exactly, but a guy with a devilish mind, so to speak. I just sort of [went with it] and it felt pretty relaxing after awhile. It was a different twist that I enjoyed. I wish that I could have done a couple of them. You know what I mean? I hope something else [of this nature] will come up because then I'll maybe know a little more about it [laughs].